A hospital consultant who hypnotised and sexually assaulted two women has failed in a bid to have his convictions overturned at the Court of Appeal.

Imad Al-Khawaja, 49, a rehabilitative medicine specialist, who worked at Brighton General Hospital during 2002 and 2003, used hypnotherapy techniques on the two women before fondling them and asking explicit sexual questions.

Al-Khawaja, of Valley Drive, Brighton, was jailed for a total of two years and three months, made up of separate 12 and 15-month sentences, after he was convicted of two counts of indecent assault at Hove Crown Court on December 1 last year.

He appealed against those convictions before Lord Justice Scott Baker, sitting with Mr Justice Jack and Mr Justice David Clarke at London's Criminal Appeal Court yesterday.

The judge told the court how one of Al-Khawaja's victims, a 20-year-old who cannot be named for legal reasons, "felt violated and sick" after suffering his perverted attentions.

She had been referred to him after suffering a muscle spasm in her neck and Al-Khawaja had told her he would be a "father figure" to her.

His other victim - a 47-year-old multiple sclerosis sufferer whom Al-Khawaja groped while she was under his care - has since committed suicide as her condition deteriorated.

It was the admission into evidence of that victim's witness statement at his trial, after her death, that formed the basis of Al-Khawaja's challenge to his convictions today.

Joel Bennathan, for Al-Khawaja, claimed the inability of the defence to cross-examine her on her statement meant its case was prejudiced.

Her evidence should not have been allowed to go before the jury without "the most robust warning," he argued.

Mr Bennathan said the judge should have pointed out the dangers of such a statement, stressing the possibility of false memory syndrome, among other warnings.

He said: "There should have been a powerful counterbalancing exercise."

Mr Bennathan concluded by saying the conviction relating to the other woman was also rendered "unsafe" as the evidence of the dead woman would have influenced the jury's approach to what the 20-year-old said had happened.

But Lord Justice Baker dashed Al-Khawaja's hopes by dismissing the appeals, saying the court would give reasons for its decision at a later date.